Where the Heavy Metal Bands Are

I thought it might be fun to offer a little context for this map (below), which has been making the rounds at Reddit and FlowingData.

(Click the map for a larger image)

It shows Sweden and Finland with a fairly massive lead in metal bands per capita. Northern Europe and Scandinavia do well across board with Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and tiny Estonia besting the U.S. and U.K. by a considerable margin, as our colleagues at The Atlantic Wirehave noted.

Geography and personality appear to play a role. Several psychological studies link heavy metal to personality types that are drawn to “intense and rebellious” music (which includes rock and alternative as well as heavy metal). An important 2011 study on “The Structure of Music Preferences” by Jason Rentfrow, Lew Goldberg, and Dan Levitin identifies heavy metal as part of an “intense music preference” defined by music that is distorted, loud, percussive and fast and linked to aggressive personality types.

My own research with Rentfrow and others shows that intense music preferences (including preferences for heavy metal music) are geographically strongest in the upper Plains states of Montana, Wyoming, and Nebraska as well as New Mexico, Nevada and Missouri in the United States. The study also found preferences for heavy metal strongest in states with large proportions of white residents.

A Twitter commenter writes: "Let’s call this one the "grunge effect" because of high heavy metal concentration in places with depressing winters."

Top image: Reuters/Jumana El-Heloueh

About the Author

Richard Florida is a co-founder and editor at large of CityLab and a senior editor at The Atlantic. He is a University Professor and Director of Cities at the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute, and a Distinguished Fellow at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate.